This Land Is Mine
by autumnrose2010
Summary: <html><head></head>Rudy and Inga survived the horrors of the Holocaust. Now they live in the newly-formed country of Israel with their children Josef and Anna.</html>
1. The Kibbutz

Inga wiped the beads of sweat from her brow as she stood to face the morning sun, whose rays she was just beginning to feel as it rose higher in the sky. Certainly she had never pictured herself as a farmer before, yet here she was, working in the fields of the kibbutz with all the others.

"Are you all right, honey?" Inga's husband Rudy looked at her with concern.

"I'm fine," Inga assured him. Despite the heat of the sun and the tired ache in her muscles at the end of each day, she felt that she had never been happier in her life than she was here, working amongst her husband's people. The horrors of the Nazi concentration camps finally behind them, a new day had dawned for these courageous and determined souls. Inga's children, Josef and Anna, would grow to call this land home.

Seven-year-old Josef was the son of Inga's first husband, Karl, who had been Rudy's older brother. Karl, who had never had a strong constitution, had fallen ill and died in Auschwitz. Inga remembered her gentle, mild-mannered first husband with a bittersweet mixture of warmth and sadness. Sometimes she wondered what life might have held for herself and Karl if the Holocaust had never happened, although she knew that there was no point in dwelling on the past, that there was now a future to concentrate on.

Josef was creative and imaginative, just as his artist father had been. At seven he already showed definite talent. Two-year-old Anna, named for the aunt whom she would never know, was Rudy's daughter. She showed definite traces of her father's bold and adventurous personality, tempered somewhat by Inga's sensitive nature.

With the busy work and the comeradie of her fellow workers, time passed swiftly for Inga, and soon it was time to pick Josef and Anna up from the child care center and go home. Inga felt Rudy's arm encircle her waist and turned to kiss him. Then they left for the child care center hand in hand.

"Hey, Mama, look what I did!" Josef said proudly, showing his latest art project to his mother. It was a painting of the family on vacation at the seashore. He had used a brilliant blue color for the waves and a bright yellow for the sun.

"That's wonderful, honey," Inga told him.

"Daddy!" shouted Anna, running toward Rudy as fast as her little legs could carry her.

"Hi, sweetheart!" Rudy laughed as he picked her up and hugged her. In response, she threw her arms around his neck and cuddled up to him. There was a special place in his heart for this little girl who so reminded him of the younger sister he had so tragically lost.

After the children had gone to bed, Rudy and Inga sat looking up at the stars in the clear night sky.

"Hashem promised Abraham that his descendants would number as many as the stars in the sky and the grains of sand on the beach," Rudy said.

"Sometimes when I look up at the sky at night, I think that I could spend the rest of my life counting stars and still not reach the end," Inga replied. She was lying on her back with her head in Rudy's lap.

"We are building a mighty nation, Inga. One that our children and grandchildren will be proud to belong to. It's a long, hard struggle, but in the end it will all be worth it."

"I'm just so happy to be a part of it, and to be here with you, Rudy. Even though my blood is German, my heart is here with you and your people. I truly feel as if I am one of you."

"I love you so much, Inga," Rudy said softly.

"I love you too," Inga said. Although he couldn't see it in the dark, she was smiling.


	2. Questions

"Mama, what was my daddy like?" Josef asked Inga one day.

"He was a good man," Inga replied. "He was kind to everyone. He was a wonderful husband who loved me very much, as I loved him. He was quiet and gentle, and he loved beautiful things. He was a lot like your grandfather, who was a doctor."

"Why did he die?"

"He just got sick and died one day, Josef," Inga said sadly.

"And what about my Aunt Anna?"

"She got sick and had to be sent to a special place for sick people. But she just got sicker and died." Perhaps one day she would tell him the whole story about what had really happened to Anna, but he was too young to know about that now. Much too young.

"A hospital?"

"No, a sanitarium. It's a lot like a hospital though."

"And my grandma and grandpa?"

Inga sighed. "Some bad people took them away. Your grandpa was taken to a camp where he continued to work as a doctor until he got sick and couldn't work anymore. Then one day he...just died. Your grandma was sent to a different camp for women, where she died too."

"Why did she die, Mama? Did she get sick too?"

"No, she didn't." _Josef, you ask too many questions, _Inga wanted to say.

"The bad people who ran the camps, they...they didn't like Jews, so they killed a lot of them. Your grandma was one of the ones they killed."

"How did they kill them, Mama?"

"They were all put together in a big room with poisonous gas in it. They breathed the poisonous gas and it killed them." Inga knew that she couldn't hide the ugly truth from her son forever.

Josef looked very upset. "Just because they were Jews? People like us?"

"Yes, Josef." Inga herself had converted to Judaism shortly before her marriage to Rudy. It wasn't something he had insisted upon, but she had wanted to do it of her own accord.

"They were bad people, Josef. But they lost the war. The good people from the United States and the United Kingdom and some other countries closed their camps and took them all away to prison. They can't hurt us anymore, Josef. We're safe now."

"Really?"

"Yes, we are. We're in Israel, our permanent home, now. All the people here are our friends. All the bad people are gone now. Only the nice people are left."

Josef, seeming satisfied with her answer, ran off to play with his friends. Inga, who had wanted to be truthful with her son and yet spare him as much pain and worry as possible, hoped that he wouldn't have any bad dreams that night.


	3. Nightmare

"Hon, are you all right?"

The sound of Rudy's voice jolted Inga back to reality. She had awakened with her heart pounding and her eyes wide with terror, momentarily unsure of where she was. Now as she looked into her husband's soft brown eyes, her memory gradually returned.

"I just had another one of those dreams," she said weakly.

"Oh, honey," Rudy said softly as he put his arms around her and hugged her close. He knew what she was referring to. When Karl had been imprisoned in a concentration camp, the only way she had been able to get messages to him had been by providing sexual favors to a certain guard who had been infatuated with her.

"The things he made me do..." Inga mumbled. Rudy felt the movement of her lips through the material of his pajama top. "That was so long ago, Rudy. Why does it keep coming back to me in dreams? Every time I dream about it, it feels like it just happened all over again."

"I don't know, sweetheart." Rudy wished that there was something, anything, that he could do to take away his wife's pain. Some scars just ran too deep, he supposed.

"Make love to me, Rudy," Inga begged. "I really need to feel you inside me right now. That's the only thing that will drive away the memory of him being there."

_"Ahuvati," _Rudy whispered softly, showering Inga's face with kisses. She cupped his chin in her hand and kissed him passionately, running the fingers of her other hand through his hair. Then she lay back down on the bed, pulling him down on top of herself.

"Better now?" Rudy asked afterwards, trailing his fingers through her hair, which was damp with perspiration.

"Much," Inga whispered back. "Thank you, Rudy."

"I love you, Inga." He kissed her lips tenderly.

"Hold me, Rudy. I need to feel your arms around me."

He pulled her close, burying his face in her hair and running his hands over her back in slow, lazy circles.

"I love you, Rudy." Her voice was muffled against his chest.

"Go back to sleep now, my love. Only sweet dreams from now on." Inga yawned, and Rudy sqeezed her and kissed the top of her head. Within moments, her deep, even breathing told him that she was asleep.


	4. Picnic At The Seashore

"Are you all right, sweetheart?" Rudy asked Inga the following morning.

"I'm fine," Inga replied with a yawn. Rudy knew that her words weren't necessarily true, but he also knew that she didn't want him to worry too much about her.

"Are we still going to the seashore today, Uncle Rudy?" asked Josef.

"I don't see why not," said Rudy. "The weather looks perfect."

"Hurray!" shouted Anna, jumping up and down.

"You both have to eat breakfast first," Inga reminded them.

Breakfast was quickly over with, and the family set out for the seashore.

"I love the weather here," Inga commented. "It doesn't rain as much as it does in Germany, and the winters aren't nearly as cold."

"So you don't miss the snow?" Rudy grinned.

"Well, only at Christmas...I mean..."

Rudy laughed. "Old habits die hard, don't they?"

"I only meant it was always so beautiful covering the trees and rooftops, but there's much beauty here as well. There are fig and olive trees, and wide open fields where sheep can graze."

"And seashores," Rudy pointed out.

Inga laughed. "And seashores."

Rudy parked the car under a shade tree, and the family got out and headed for the shore. Together, Rudy and Inga spread the quilt and sat the picnic basket on it.

Anna ran straight for the water, with Josef following closely behind.

"Stay where we can see you!" Inga shouted after them.

"Come on, kids, let's make a sand castle!" Rudy suggested.

Josef was content to sit shaping wet sand into fortresses, moats, and bridges with his uncle for a while, but little Anna soon became bored and began to run around in the sand.

"Let's look for pretty seashells," Inga said, taking her daughter by the hand.

"There's one!" Anna shouted excitedly, running to pick it up. Rudy and Josef soon finished their sand castle and joined them.

After awhile, they all got hungry and went back to the picnic basket. Inga took the sandwiches and drinks out, and they began to eat.

Afterwards, Anna took a nap while Rudy and Inga talked.

"She reminds me so much of you," Inga said as she watched her little daughter sleep.

"How I wish her grandparents and aunt and uncle could know her," Rudy said wistfully.

"They're watching from above," said Inga consolingly.

"Of course they are," said Rudy. "And they'll meet her when the Messiah comes."

"Will the Messiah be here in time for my birthday?" asked Josef.

"Perhaps." Rudy laughed and ruffled his nephew's hair.

"I want to meet my Daddy," Josef continued.

'You will some day," Rudy assured him.

"If the Messiah comes before my birthday, then my Daddy will be here for my birthday too," Josef observed.

"That's right." Rudy grinned.

After awhile, Anna woke up and played in the sand with her brother some more. Later it got darker and cooler and they all went home. Josef took the seashells with them and made a necklace for his mother out of them.


End file.
